This criticism came, perhaps, more loudly
from the female faction of the town than from the male. However that
may be, the stigma, merited or unmerited, had become so firmly branded
upon Celestina that it could not be effaced. She may to some extent
have brought it upon herself, for certain it was that she never kicked
against the pricks or tried to shape her circumstances more in
accordance with her liking. Undoubtedly had she accepted her lot less
meekly she might have commanded a greater measure of attention and
sympathy; still, if she had not been of a more or less plastic nature
and surrendered herself patiently to her destiny it is a question
whether she would have survived at all.
It was this mutability, this power to detach herself from her
environment and view it with the stoical indifference of a spectator
that caused Wilton with its harsh New England standards, to
characterize Celestina as "easy goin'." In fact, this popularly termed
"flaw" in her make-up was what had acted as an open sesame to every
door at which she knocked and had kept a roof above her head.
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